acquired.

It was now necessary to get quarters for the night, but I found, at
that advanced hour, that many of the leading hotels were either full
or unwilling to supply me with a bedroom-and-stable-combined until the
morning. I was refused firmly but civilly at the Grand, the Metropole,
the Grosvenor, and the Pig and Whistle Tavern, South East Hackney.
At the latter caravanserai, the night-porter (who was busying himself
cleaning the pewter pots) suggested that I should go to Bath.
Adopting this idea, I mounted my steed (which answered, after a little
practice, to the name of _Cats'-meat_), and took the Old Kent Road
until I reached St. Albans.

[Illustration: Everything comes to him who _waits_.]

It was now morning, and the old abbey stood out in grand outline
against the glorious scarlet of the setting sun. Entering an inn,
I called for refreshment for man and beast, and, having authority
for considering myself qualified to act as representative of both,
consumed the double portion. Thinking about the whiskey I had just
discussed, as I rode along, I came to a milestone, standing on its
head, and a sign-post in the last stage of hopeless intoxication. It
was here that a police constable turned his lantern upon me with a
pertinacity that apparently was calculated to challenge observation.
Annoyed, but not altogether surprised, I declared my opinion that it
was "all right," and fell asleep. When I awoke, I found that I had
travelled some hundreds of miles, and, strange to say, my horse was as
good as when it had started. From what I could gather from the signs
on the road (I have been accustomed to Forestry from my earliest
childhood), it seemed to me that, while I was slumbering, I must
have passed Macclesfield, Ramsgate, Richmond (both in Surrey and
in Yorkshire), and was now close to the weirdest spot in all
phantom-populated Wiltshire--a place in its rugged desolation
suggestive of the Boundless Prairies and BUFFALO BILL--Wild-Westbury!
Greatly fatigued, I entered a second inn, and enjoyed a hearty meal,
which was also a simple one. I am a liquidarian, and take no animal
or vegetable food, and have not tasted fish for nearly a quarter of a
century.

When I wished to continue my journey to Bath, I found _Cats'-meat_
so disinclined to move, that I thought the best thing to do in the
interest of progress, was to carry him myself. He was very light--so
light that I imagined the automatic weighing-machine must h